- By Ash
- in News
The end of days has come! The Hearthstone developers have not only broken their solemn vow of never, ever balancing their own game, but they have also done so in what I can only describe as a perfectly reasonable and balanced manner! I am expecting the gates of hell to open any day now as the world has quite clearly gone mad!
While my cataclysmic predictions might be a slight exaggeration, the rest of it is completely true. Blizzard has finally decided to actively balance Hearthstone in order to provide a more fun and competitive environment for all, and if this upcoming patch is any judge they are definitely moving in the right direction. If you don't believe me, have a look at all of the changes yourself:
- By Ash
- in News
For those of you that might not know, GOG Connect is a service that allows you to link together your GOG and Steam accounts, essentially giving you DRM-free copies for your Steam games. Naturally, this only works for a select few games, but it does appear that the list is going to continue expanding given that GOG recently added 17 more games to the service.
If you're interested in learning more about GOG Connect I would recommend you head towards the official FAQ, it should cover pretty much any question you have. On the other hand, if you're just looking to find out which games have been added, here's the full list:
- By Ash
- in News
Due to a strange turn of events the modern Doom ended up launching without any sort of a deathmatch mode. Thankfully, Bethesda has seen the error of their ways and have now included the classic free-for-all deathmatch mode as a part of the recent "Free Update 3".
As an added bonus, they have also added the ability to host Private Matches. When setting up your matches you will be able to determine the modes you'll play, the maps you'll play them on, the duration of the match, and other such settings you're probably well aware of. And finally, here are all of the bug fixes, as well as the changes to the SnapMap editor:
- By Ash
- in News
While I consider Overwatch to be one of the finest games I've ever played, it is not without its issues. The most annoying of these is the magically disappearing reconnect button, something that might sound hilarious right now, but is anything but when you're desperately trying to rejoin a game after the server kicked you out due to the yet another DDOS attack. There are very few things that sent me on a tilt, but the feeling of completely screwing over my entire team is certainly one of them - especially when the whole thing is outside of my control!
If you share a similar story, and I can almost guarantee you do because I've never seen the reconnect button actually working, you'll be glad to hear that the Overwatch team is currently hard at work on fixing just this issue. Best of all, they're also looking into increasing the buffer time so those that disconnect actually have a chance to come back and help their team secure victory. Here's the full message from Overwatch's Game Director Jeff Kaplan:
- By Ash
- in News
If you haven't been paying attention to World of Warcraft news the past few days you may have missed all of the balance changes set to arrive with the next server reset. While there are certainly some great changes to be found amidst the patch notes, there are also some... questionable nerfs that if implemented could easily end up spelling doom and gloom for a couple of specializations.
Thankfully, after a few of days of non-stop yelling and some great arguments from the side of the community, Blizzard has finally decided to revoke the majority of the more egregious nerfs in favor of subtler changes. You can read the updated patch notes by heading over to the Blizzard forums, but for now here are the most important corrections:
- By Ash
- in News
While most of the heroes in Overwatch are fairly well balanced, there are a few outliers that just can't seem to find a consistent place on any team. Chief among them is Symmetra, a support hero that entirely relies on her team dying one by one in order to provide any utility, and even then her impact is a lot lower than her competition's.
In short, Symmetra has problems, and a lot of them! Thankfully, it does appear that Blizzard is well aware of this as they have just recently announced their plans to rework Symmetra at some point in November. This information comes from a brief interview Jeff Kaplan did with Business Insider, so if you're interested in his perspective on Symmetra and her troubles I'd recommend you give it a read. If you're just looking for the short version, here's what Kaplan had to say about the upcoming changes:
- By Ash
- in News
A little while back EA teamed up with GOG to release Dragon Age: Origins, Dead Space, and Simcity 3000 as DRM-free downloads, something that came as a rather massive surprise to me given that the two are pretty much direct competitors. However, this deal apparently went over extremely well as they have teamed up once again to release another batch of DRM-free games.
While the previous trio contained only classics, the newcomers are a bit... nuanced when it comes to quality. As you've probably figured out from the title, they new additions to GOG's DRM-free library are Mirror's Edge, Spore, and The Saboteur. Neither of them are bad by any stretch. I'd even go as far as to say that they're all enjoyable games in their own right, but there are certainly a lot of flaws you'll need to overlook in order to find such a joy.
- By Ash
- in News
During the most recent round of hotfixes Blizzard promised a massive balancing patch as soon as they've gathered a significant amount of data from the Emerald Nightmare raid, and sure enough, the balance patch will be released during the upcoming server reset. Unfortunately for those of you that have been coddled by the Overwatch team and their gentle approach to balance, the World of Warcraft team has once again decided to deploy the company sledgehammer in order to deal with the problematic classes.
Most of the changes are actually quite good, don't get me wrong, but when it comes to Shadow Priests, Protection Warriors, and Havoc Demon Hunters one really starts to wonder if the developers even playtested any of these changes. You can find the full patch notes by heading over here, but for now allow me to present you the changes I find particularly troublesome:
- By Ash
- in News
Humble Bundle has been on a roll these past few months, delivering entire batches of quality games, both indie and AAA. The same applies to the recently released Humble Jumbo Bundle 7, though the focus is more on the indie side of things this time around.
So what exactly does the Jumbo Bundle bring with it? Well, the first tier includes the old school classic RollerCoaster Tycoon 2: Triple Thrill Pack, the action-packed FPS Devil Daggers, as well as a roguelike by the name of Runestone Keeper. The second, or rather the $5.33 and above tier, brings with it another classic in the shape of Stronghold Crusader 2, but also Prison Architect, and Punch Club. The final $10 and above tier features Miscreated, an Early Access survival game with some rather mixed reviews behind it.
- By Ash
- in News
For those of you that haven't been paying attention to the Overwatch competitive scene these past few weeks, it is mostly dominated by 0-3-3 compositions. In other words, three tanks and three healers, all focused around Ana and her rapidly charging ultimate. Given how absurd things have become lately it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to hear that Blizzard has decided to slightly nerf the charge speed on Ana's ultimate. However, if you're a fan of her playstyle I wouldn't worry too much about this nerf as you'll also be getting a range increase for the always useful Biotic Grenade.
On the other side of the spectrum we have Widowmaker and Junkrat, two heroes that occasionally make a blip in the competitive scene, but are mostly underplayed due to some severe weaknesses. In order to hopefully correct this Blizzard has decided to decrease the amount of time it takes for Widowmaker to scope in, while good ol' Trashmouse will now be able to start up his RIP-Tire almost twice as quickly, essentially removing his overly long period of complete vulnerability.
You can find the full patch notes by heading over to the Blizzard forums, but if you're just interested in all of the hero changes - here the list: